The Mother Brain
The Mother Brain, also known as the Elder Brain, is the creator and supreme leader of a community of illithids. Each major illithid community has one Mother Brain, which is the source of all the tadpoles used to make the illithids in that community. She is an enormous brain lying in a tank of fluid, generally at the center of an illithid city. She commands the illithids when relevant, monitors their thoughts, and gives them a constant stream of information while they are within her psychic range, boosting their intelligence while they are within a few miles of her. This information is absorbed subconsciously, and direct communication between illithids and the Mother is rare and largely ceremonial. It is considered polite to physically speak to the Mother in order to preserve the language, and she will ask questions of her children even though she already knows all they could possibly answer. Messages from the Mother can sometimes be hidden inside an illithid's memory until they specifically look at the time when they received the message with a spell such as Modify Memory. The Mother Brain spawns tadpoles which live in her tank for about one year, avoiding being eaten by her and each other. They are then taken and used for ceremorphosis. Conventional illithids desire above all else to be reunited with her on death. This is done by removing the dead illithid's brain and allowing her to absorb it. The Mother Brain can thus be considered to be a collection of all illithids who have come before in that city. Xenteroth implied that the persistence of the illithid's self within the Mother after death is a lie. The Mothers There were nine Mother Brains at the beginning of time; since then, three have died after spawning casters of Snowstorm Prime and two have died due to caster error during casts of Snowstorm Prime. The Mother Brains known to the party are: *The Mother Brain of Baldur (currently imprisoned by Xenteroth) *The Mother Brain of Malvont (sitting out the world reboot in an undisclosed location) *The Mother Brain of Mind's Touch (murdered by Isona Vandr while moribund after spawning Ashra) There are two other Mothers (presumably) alive on (presumably) the Prime; estimates of their original locations include the Great Nyasan Valley and the Eastern Continent. In Eon The Mother Brain of Malvont disappeared during the Battle of Malvont, leaving in the minds of her children the subconscious message "Bona fortuna, filii". For three years, Ashra searched for any sign of the Mother or of what she wanted done. The Mother Brain of Baldur had also disappeared when The Company returned to Baldur City in early 1443. A Sending to the Mother Brain of Baldur failed to get a response. Discern Location revealed a location deep within the Ornan Jungle, but this was actually the Mother Brain of Mind's Touch, who manipulated Ashra's casting such that she looked for "her own mother" instead of "the Baldur". When Xoth opened a door on Mechanus, a Mother Brain said "So they've arrived." During the matrix puzzle, a Mother whispered "Help me, Ashra!" in Ashra's mind. Through the other end of the matrix puzzle, the party were brought to a hallway of gear tapestries and led by Xeph to a portal the color of infinity. On the other end was a room with five Mother Brains, Grax, Xoth, and two other illithids. The Mother Brains manifested two figures, Analepsis and Prolepsis, which told Ashra that she was designed and chosen to bring the illithid race "back to the beginning". The Elder Brains themselves revealed that the world will end in eight years on the first day of the Injustinia, and that this will be the seventeenth time it has done so. The entire setup was revealed to be a ploy by Xenteroth, who has become a lich Elder Brain himself, and who was attempting to trick Ashra into letting him consume her brain. The Mother Brain of Baldur again asked Ashra for help and managed to warn her to run just before Xenteroth would have killed her. The party defeated Xenteroth after a brutal battle. Before defeating Orcas, Ashra offered a prayer/thought to her mother and received the response, "Make the world safe for us, forever and again." After defeating Orcas, she received a revelation of connections between previously unrelated events, and the words "Welcome home." When meditating on these words in the scrying pool of Anahita Benin, Ashra saw the Mother Brain of Baldur, supercharged with magical power and letting off lightning, floating in what looks like Mind's Touch. She also received the words "We care little for human affairs, but in divine effort comes all the risk." Ashra found her own Mother in Mind's Touch. The Mother gave her instructions for Snowstorm Prime, and was then killed in an invasion by Isona Vandr. Category:Political Figures Category:NPCs